


a little 'stitious

by facingthenorthwind (spacegandalf)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Pre-game rituals, mutually oblivious losers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-08
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-09-14 13:18:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16913565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacegandalf/pseuds/facingthenorthwind
Summary: Alicia Spinnet is only kissing Katie Bell for sports reasons. Really.





	a little 'stitious

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MuggleMaybe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MuggleMaybe/gifts).



> The quidditch schedule in the books is silly and I refuse to acknowledge it. Thank you to Jo and ao3 user renaissance for the help. <3

Alicia and Katie shared many things: a love of Quidditch, fierce house pride, the opinion that Gwenog Jones was the best player in the national league (and quite fit), and the certainty that sports rituals were sacred and essential.

That was going to be Alicia's defence if anyone caught her bending down to press a soft, closed-mouthed kiss to Katie's lips just before the match against Hufflepuff. She was helping out a teammate in need. 

What had happened was this:

“Bell, what’s wrong? D’you want me to do your hair?” Alicia had watched Katie redo her French plait three times now; each time Katie had huffed in frustration and violently undone it, her fingers getting stuck as she drew them through the hair she’d already plaited.

“Everything’s off,” Katie had admitted, sitting down on the bench. “Before I get changed I always get a kiss from Donald, and — well, we broke up last week—”

“I’m sorry,” Alicia said, shoving Angelina in the side when she made a disbelieving face at her. She could be sorry that the girl she had a crush on broke up with her boyfriend! She contained multitudes! Okay, she hadn’t ever _liked_ Donald, but she could be sad that Katie was hurting.

“No, it’s been a long time coming, I broke up with him,” Katie said, waving her hand dismissively.

“Oh,” Alicia managed, as Angelina grinned at her.

“And everything just feels off, you know?” 

Alicia opened her mouth to make sympathetic noises but was distracted when Angelina swore colourfully.

“Myf must’ve borrowed — ugh, back in a few,” she said, running out of the room without looking at either of them. 

Alicia had no idea what Myf had borrowed, but she sent silent thanks her way — she didn’t want a cackling audience for what she was going to say next.

Affecting a studied nonchalance and rummaging through her bag (for absolutely nothing) so she didn’t have to see Katie’s face, she said, “I could give you a kiss? I doubt I could live up to the kissing expertise of Donald Rutland, but it might work?”

She was incredibly proud of herself for not spontaneously combusting as the words left her mouth. 

“Oh,” Katie said, and Alicia couldn’t help risking a glance. Katie was blushing, and she didn’t appear like she was about to hex Alicia into next week. “Um, that, yeah? Worth a shot?”

“Uh,” Alicia said eloquently, having never dreamt Katie would actually take her up on it. “Right, yeah, let’s do that then.” She wiped her hands on her quidditch robes and turned to face Katie. “You ready?”

“Yeah?” Katie said, looking up at her. There were four inches between them, and Alicia felt her stomach swoop as she leant down. 

It was over in a moment, barely anything, but Alicia could feel heat radiating off her face as she pulled away. 

“Was that uh, was that okay?” she said, clearing her throat. Thank God Angelina couldn’t see her right now. 

“Yeah, thanks,” Katie said. She was relieved to see that Katie was also blushing.

They both started when Angelina came running in, too busy catching her breath from her sprint to retrieve whatever it was from Myf to notice anything unusual. 

“All good, Johnson?” Alicia called, sounding remarkably normal, if she did say so herself.

“Yeah, thanks, can’t believe Myf forgot I needed my quidditch gloves for quidditch, she wished me luck at breakfast.” Alicia considered asking what it was Myf had needed the gloves for, but before she could Oliver banged on the door, yelling that it was time to go out onto the pitch. 

They had Hufflepuffs to demolish.

* * *

The next fortnight, they had a game against Slytherin, and this time it was Katie that approached her while Angelina was in the loo.

“So, uh, since we were so good against Hufflepuff — I mean, um, clearly the kiss worked. Do you think—”

“Yeah!” Alicia said, too quickly, too enthusiastically. Shit. “Uh, yeah, I can do that if you like. Um, now?”

“Yeah, if that’s — yeah,” Katie said, and they both moved at the same time and a little too quickly and their noses bumped together. “Shit, sorry, uh,” Katie said, before finally pressing her lips to Alicia’s. Was Alicia imagining it, or was it longer than last time? Probably imagining it.

“Alicia Spinnet!” 

Alicia jumped back as Angelina returned. When she turned to face her, Angelina was grinning a wicked grin that made Alicia consider never going back to their dorm again. 

“Johnson,” Alicia said, brushing off her robes that had absolutely nothing on them.

“How long has this been going on then?” Angelina asked, looking between them. She was still looking entirely too delighted by this.

“It’s just as a replacement for the snog she used to get from Rutland. You know, ritual stuff." Alicia did her best to sound as if it meant absolutely nothing to her, comparable to the handshake she did with the twins on the way onto the pitch or the nod she exchanged with Oliver as they rose into the air. "If we lose then you’ll have to give it a go.”

Angelina was absolutely not fooled, but Alicia knew that was a lost cause. If Katie found out that actually, Alicia was absolutely gone on her and had been for months, she might — Alicia wasn’t sure what she might do, but she didn’t fancy taking the risk to find out. Much better to just play good quidditch.

And what good quidditch — they gave Slytherin an absolute drubbing, and later that night they all sat around in the common room, the twins having snuck in butterbeer and a small bottle of firewhiskey from who knows where, laughing about the look on the Slytherin chaser’s face when Alicia had plucked the quaffle out of his hand.

Alicia had had a single shot of firewhiskey, which had made her eyes burn but now settled as a pleasant warmth in the pit of her stomach. Perhaps it was the alcohol that had lowered her defences, or perhaps it was just the high of the win over their most hated rival that made it embarrassingly easy for Angelina to sit down right next to her with that grin from the morning back again.

“So. Bell. Spill.”

“I told you,” Alicia said, putting on her best innocent expression. “Quidditch ritual. Superstition. Well, little stition. A kiss-sized one.”

“Pull the other one, Spinnet. You — hang on, you’re serious. Oh my god.” Angelina started laughing, big guffaws that took entire lungfuls of air. “That’s the most tragic thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Shut up,” Alicia said, her face burning. 

“Well, you move in fast, what was that, a whole eight days since Rutland?”

“She said it’d been coming for a while,” Alicia muttered, well aware she had no leg to stand on. “Anyway, it’s not like that, it’s just—”

“A ritual, yeah, sure. And I’m not saying you should go for it immediately, since it hasn’t even been a month since she dumped Rutland, but… you should go for it. It’d be a nice change from hearing about Ethel’s boy dramas.”

“I see, so it’s entirely as a favour to you.” The buzzing happiness of just ten minutes ago had disappeared and Alicia was feeling sullen.

“No, obviously I was kidding about that, bloody hell. What’s got your kneazle in a knot?”

“Dunno,” she said mulishly, grabbing a whole handful of those Honeydukes miniature chocolate quaffles that were definitely maltesers except maltesers were muggle, so they called them something different. Copyright law didn’t exist in between worlds, she supposed. Also, they tasted better than maltesers, which Alicia hadn’t thought possible. It was… magical.

She shoved six in her mouth at once.

“Look, I’m sorry if I touched a nerve or something. I promise to mysteriously leave the room for two minutes before every match so you can get some face-on-face action, _if_ —” Here she pointed at Alicia like a teacher telling her off. “—if you actually do something about this within two months. I’m generous! Also, I’m pretty sure Bell will do something about it before the two month deadline anyway, so there’s no way you can lose.”

Alicia tried to say something but found she was at dire risk of death by miniature chocolate quaffle, so they sat in silence as she chewed and swallowed. “Why would she do anything about it?” she said at last.

Angelina rolled her eyes and smirked, which Alicia realised happened… fairly often. Just because Angelina was six months older than her didn’t actually _mean_ anything, but she acted as if she were oh so much wiser for it.

“I’m sure you’ll find out,” she said, not answering the question at all, like she were bloody Dumbledore or some nonsense. 

“Ugh, sod off,” Alicia said, giving her a shove. “Wait, no, don’t sod off, get me another butterbeer. And then sod off maybe.”

But because Angelina was the best friend a person could ask for, she got Alicia another butterbeer. What a legend.

* * *

This precarious situation continued for three more quidditch games. Three kisses. Three wins. Six weeks. Countless pointed looks from Angelina. Whatever, it was fine, Alicia was fine, and she had never before in her life felt it was so important to win quidditch games, which she felt kind of guilty about. But if they lost, then she wouldn’t get to kiss Katie again, and that was — she tried not to think about it.

As the two month deadline approached, Angelina’s pointed looks had become so sharp you could embroider with them. You could skewer a variety of vegetables and bits of meat on them and have a barbecue. You could prick yourself on the finger with them, fall asleep for a hundred years and send the kingdom into mourning. 

Alicia ignored them.

The kisses were definitely getting longer. Alicia, obviously, was leaving the kiss length to Katie, because they were her ritual and Alicia was just along for the ride on kind of false pretenses. She had no idea what to think of the way Katie had actually given her two kisses last game, her eyes fluttering closed and she had opened her mouth slightly on the second before she realised who she was kissing and jumped back, her face as red as her robes.

Maybe she still carried a torch for Rutland? At least it confirmed Alicia wasn’t _heaps_ bad at kissing, at least the tame kind. 

They’d just finished an afternoon practice and Alicia was _trying_ to convince Katie that Portree would go all the way this year — Katie was Extremely Wrong when she said that Portree didn’t have a chance in hell and the Wasps would sweep everyone; Alicia couldn’t believe she actually fancied someone with such a _terrible opinion_. 

“See what you’re not taking into account is that Sato is absolutely going to live up to the family name — I know she had a rough first two seasons but she’s clearly hit her groove, you can tell just from the performance so far in—” Alicia stopped suddenly as she realised Katie was smiling at her. “Are you laughing at me? You, Miss ‘1993 Is Going To Be The Year For The Cannons, Just You Wait’ is laughing at—”

Before she could finish the sentence, Katie leant in quick as anything and kissed her.

Alicia was frozen for a moment, but after that she decided not to question it and just kiss back, lest Katie think she wasn’t interested in the proceedings. It wasn’t really all that different from the other times she had kissed her, except that this time there was absolutely no reason for it. When Katie pulled away Alicia leant forward without thinking about it, and Katie giggled.

Alicia opened her eyes. Katie was smiling nervously, her face as flushed as it had been during practice.

“So, uh, that — that was alright, then?” Katie said, but it was more a formality than anything — Alicia could feel her face trying to split apart with how hard she was grinning.

“Depends, is this one to ensure we win against Ravenclaw, or because you want to kiss me?”

In response, Katie kissed her again, and Alicia didn’t even bother breaking the kiss when Angelina walked in from the showers and wolf-whistled. 

Clearly, she’d just have to work out how many kisses she could plausibly work into their pre-game routine. There was no way they could lose now.


End file.
